Fresh Cooler is a house brand of 7-Eleven that sells cold drinks in the jet spray machine. Premiums for Fresh Cooler are special containers, which are classified into two types: tumbler and bucket. Mam Heart Co., LTD is a subsidiary of CPALL responsible for all marketing activities of 7-Eleven, including Fresh Cooler.
It's quite interesting how special containers could drive sales for Fresh Cooler without heavy advertising because drinks on the market today are easily interchangeable.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Sale and promotional tools for retailers
- Consumer characteristics that affect premiums-based promotion
- Relationship between brand loyalty and sales promotions
- The targets of cartoon character premiums
As previously mentioned, different promotions give different results; therefore, in choosing and introducing any promotions, both retailers and manufacturers must think carefully about the consequences. This may be because customers' perception of a brand is better than others, but they do not necessarily buy the product of the brand due to many reasons such as high switching costs or the place of residence. This can be explained by the fact that nowadays consumers are more and more aware of the benefits of the products rather than just paying a little less.
H5: Cartoon toy premium buyers will report more frequent purchases of the premium offering brand than non-premium buyers. H6: Cartoon toy premium buyers will report more frequent previous purchases of a premium from that campaign than non-premium buyers. Therefore, it shows no significant effect of accompanying children with them when they made the premium purchase.
In addition, the result of the fourth hypothesis showed that those who switched to the competition brand did not value the Snoopy premiums more highly than the current consumers because the premium came with the meal. Finally, the fifth and sixth hypotheses suggest that customers of premium products have experienced purchasing these meals in the past and would revisit and purchase more meals. The Snoopy collection was the only character that tested the hypothesis, which could have yielded limiting buyer results.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This focus group was created by TAC Consumer Company, one of the Fresh Cooler suppliers. The purpose of this focus group was to understand more about Fresh Cooler's consumer knowledge so that both TAC and CPALL could develop the right drinks. The Intage team selected eight respondents whom they termed "super consumers" as these respondents are actual 7-Eleven users who normally purchase beverages from the Fresh Cooler at least 3-4 times a week.
Thus, 7-Eleven and TAC team could explore their ideas more about how these people want or expect to see from Fresh Cooler. The limitation of this method in data collection is that the focus group was conducted only in one group of super customers who may not be able to represent all the Fresh Cooler customers in the country. However, it could tell us how they feel about Fresh Cooler in general and what direction the teams should go.
Observation is the final data collection method used to gather information for this paper. On the 26th-29th November 2013, the researcher was tasked with making shop visits in northern Thailand (Chiang Mai and Lampang) with one supplier. Therefore, in-store observations could explain a little more in depth how these special tumblers were sold.
FINDINGS
Characteristics of Fresh Cooler Consumers
Effectiveness of each promotion under Fresh Cooler
Fresh Cooler also participated in this promotion, as Ready-to-Drink products are also very competitive. The Fresh Cooler shopkeeper mentioned that she usually gives away 6 stamps because the mechanics would not be too low to attract customers and not too high to bother. A discounted price is usually a very effective promotion compared to others as customers can get a real discount,” said a senior trader.
Sometimes cannibalization between sizes occurred because, for example, customers pay a little bit more for a large size instead of a medium. But the limitation for the merchandiser to do this promotion is that she cannot choose which food to pair with the Fresh Cooler. The right to buy is usually not that effective because the transaction will mostly happen when the cashiers plus sales by telling customers that they have the right to buy Fresh Cooler at special price when their total bill reaches 40 baht.
The mechanic of this promotion is only for a group of customers who have "Smart Purse". Customers paying with this card at 7-Eleven will be able to collect points (Cash Card. n.d). For Fresh Cooler, it will participate in promotions with 7 cards in the high or hot season since during that time; there is no need to do heavy advertising to burden oneself, said Fresh Cooler merchandiser.
How consumers think toward Fresh Cooler
They also know “Slurpee” because it somehow represents 7-Eleven signature products, but they don't know Fresh Cooler even though they have experience buying it. They all buy Fresh Cooler drinks, mainly because it is very convenient and has a reasonable price. They said that Fresh Cooler drink is even cheaper than street coffee (non-fresh coffee) because they can choose how much ice to fill in the cup, unlike street coffee where the sellers try to put as much ice as possible to fill at less coffee.
The moderator also asked whether they buy fresh coffee or not, as it is now booming in Thailand. And three of those who like fresh coffee consider Fresh Cooler as an alternative to fresh coffee when there is a long line at the fresh coffee shop. The moderator increasingly wondered why the Fresh Cooler wasn't their first choice of drink if it was cheaper and could be customized.
Nevertheless, it is still acceptable to them, as they judge by its appearance and the taste of the drink; therefore, if they have a better choice other than Fresh Cooler, Fresh Cooler would not be their number one choice. They all know that some varieties of Fresh Cooler cannot be found in other modern stores, only 7-Eleven, because when they go to Tesco Lotus express or Jiffy, they will only see Nestea brands. Fresh Cooler for those concerned as a "disposable" drink, unable to store if they.
4.4 “Premium” or “Special container” at Fresh Cooler
Successful VS failure cases of Fresh Cooler Container
A beverage promotion mentioned that while special containers contribute a lot of sales to Fresh Cooler, not all themes are concerned to be successful. The Disney character is one of the successful special containers for Fresh Cooler, which was launched for a limited period from 5 December 2012 to 25 February. Each coupon will give buyers a 7 baht discount for the next 10 times they refill drinks from Fresh Cooler at these containers.
At first, the merchandise teams of Mam Heart and Fresh Cooler jointly concluded to produce these goods in 400,000 units, but only a month had passed, the stock was running out and many store managers were calling for more. Another successful specialty mug is a Doraemon and Doraemi mug that is produced by one supplier, Ovaltine. According to the interview with the old dealer of Fresh Cooler, it was a supplier request that they wanted to buy the license of Doraemon characters and make a special pit for Fresh Cooler just because they wanted to steal the number of cups sold by other Fresh Cooler suppliers like. people are forced to fill only the Ovaltine flavor in order to get discount coupons.
The web manager also promoted Fresh Cooler's special Doraemon and Doraemi cups so that followers could get started quickly. As the teams at Mam Heart and Fresh Cooler predicted that this launch of special containers might be as popular as other licensed character containers, the total unit. This is because it can be used together with Gulp, Slurpee and Fresh Cooler without losing margins as each of them has different costs.
The lead merchandiser said sales were not as good as she expected, but surprisingly the coupon redemption rate is better than cartoon characters at 20.1%. However, since the production of 7-Eleven special tumblers was not controlled, the material used is limited due to the budget used.
DISCUSSION
Freebie, stamp, combo pack, right to buy and 7-card are Fresh Cooler's current live discount promotions. Some of them are interested in being effective and can generate a lot of sales, but it tends to be only during the promotion period without something new that can attract people to choose its brand. Furthermore, these promotions are also used by other substitute products, so if competitors play more difficult promotions, such as giving more stamps, the Fresh Cooler can be easily replaced.
To ensure that each special container would attract both customers seeking dignity and those purchasing a special container as a collection, discount coupons are also sold alongside the containers. So this shows that even though premium promotion is being used, the Fresh Cooler team still needs discount promotion to support its premium. Although a special container is a must promotion for Fresh Cooler as it wants to be very successful, not all themes sell well.
Cartoon character containers seem to be much more successful compared to a non-story such as 7-Eleven. According to the research that “predicts premium proneness” from the literature review, Fresh Cooler customers are mainly described as deal prone, time pressured and variety seeking. For those who think the Fresh Cooler prices are already reasonable, they would even feel it's worth the money if they buy a special container and are able to refill drinks at a cheaper price next time, plus they also receives a tumbler for other purposes.
CONCLUSION
